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Aging parents transmit an increasing burden of chromosomal aberrations and mutations. There are also epidemiological correlations between parental age and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The citation and interpretation of these two lines of evidence should be carefully evaluated.
Industry and its regulators are increasingly finding value in inviting independent scrutiny of clinical trial data at the participant level. In addition to increasing accuracy and trust, accessible trial data can be used to generate new research hypotheses and validate existing research. Academic trial investigators need to be incentivized to catch up with this encouraging trend.